AHMED IQBAL ULLAH RELATIONS RESOURCE CENTRE
Search our Database by Visiting www.racearchive.manchester.ac.uk
The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre was founded in 1999 specifically to combat racist ideas about Black people, and is named in honour of Ahmed Iqbal Ullah who was murdered in 1986 in the playground of a Manchester High School . The centre contains material that documents the contributions of Black people to British and American history, and the struggle against racism in its many forms.
The centre collection includes books, newspaper cuttings, journal and magazine articles, video and audio-tape, posters and other ephemeral material. We have material that is difficult to find elsewhere -–for example several collections of slave narratives, including audio-tape of interviews with ex-slaves, from the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s. The collection is organised around the key themes of history, politics, culture & identity, women, education and employment, housing, immigration, social services, criminal justice. A unique cataloguing system allows visitors to identify material relevant to their research needs. We are open to the public daily, and visitors can use the materials in the archive free of charge.
We have a small local history section that is the focus of current efforts to increase the recording of the histories of African, Asian and Caribbean communities in Manchester . We quickly became aware of very large gaps in this area. Volunteers and placement students have been working to gather such material to lodge in the centre. One of our volunteers, for example, developed a Black History Trail in preparation for Black History Month in October 2002. A placement student from Manchester Metropolitan University collected evidence of the appearance of famous Black performers Ira Aldridge and Paul Robeson in Manchester theatres, creating new files of this material for the archive.
The Centre can be found at:
Ground Floor,
Devonshire House,
Precinct Centre,
Oxford Rd,
M13 9PL
Tel 0161- 275 2920
e-mail: rrarchive@manchester.ac.uk
The centre is open to the public Monday to Friday, 9.30a.m - 4.30p.m.
For group visits, please make an appointment first.
